HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - Huntsville Housing Authority officials today rejected a site on Newson Road as unsuitable for 40 new public housing units.

Development Director Carlen Williams said the agency chose to pass on Newson Road after learning the surrounding area has a large concentration of minority residents, high poverty and a "tremendous" number of registered sex offenders - factors that likely would have raised red flags during a HUD review.

"It wasn't until we dug down into the census-tract (data) that we realized Newson needed to be rejected," Williams said during a housing authority work session at the Oscar Mason Center.

Newson Road is off Drake Avenue just east of Redstone Arsenal Gate 8.

Work Force Housing, a company led by former GW Jones & Sons executive David Johnston, earlier this year proposed building a total of 120 new public housing units for the housing authority - 40 each on Newson Road, Winchester Road and Research Park Boulevard.

Johnston, who has helped develop about 2,000 Section 8 affordable housing units in Madison County, said the new units would look and feel like traditional apartment complexes. Housing authority Executive Director Michael Lundy has said they would be reserved for families who are on a path to move "up and out" of public housing within five years.

The housing authority won't saturate any neighborhood because the new public housing would be spread over multiple locations miles apart, said Lundy.

"This really cuts to the heart of what we're trying to do with deconcentrating poverty," he said.

With Newson Road off the table, the housing authority's volunteer Board of Commissioner will turn attention to the remaining Work Force Housing sites: on Winchester Road across from Union Chapel Missionary Baptist Church; and on the west side of Research Park Boulevard between Alabama 53 and Blake Bottom Road.

Work Force Housing would charge the housing authority about $10 million to turn those vacant properties into 40-unit public housing developments, said Williams.

A decision is expected soon, as Johnston has said the company has the Winchester Road and Research Park Boulevard sites under option only through early October.